Experts say leaked messages present false link between gender-affirming care and cancer
Hundreds of messages from an internal chat board for an international group of transgender health professionals were leaked in a think tank report last week and framed as revealing serious health risks associated with gender-affirming care, including cancer. But experts say this correlation is false and oversimplifies the complex role of hormones in the body.
The report was released by Environmental Progress, a think tank focused on energy and environmental policy and founded by Michael Shellenberger, a writer who has previously been critical of gender-affirming care and said he wants to shut down the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. He and other critics of gender-affirming care claim that two particular messages from the WPATH system — where any of the organization’s more than 2,700 member clinicians can go to discuss care — prove a connection between hormone therapy and cancer.
